My music taste isn’t complicated. In fact, it is so uncomplicated, people say that I have a crap taste in music. Basically, if it is in the charts, I will love it; I am the most mainstream person you will ever meet. For example, at the moment I cannot get enough of Ellie Goulding and Katy Perry, meaning that I have the musical taste of a fourteen year old girl. I love my club anthems, get impatient when I listen to rock music (I mean… actually playing instruments – blerugh!), and my favourite part of a night-out is when the DJ embraces the cheese factor. Yep, I Macarena with the best of them. Or at least that is what the fox said!
But every now and again, someone will suggest a song to me and I will turn around and admit I hate that certain singer. It goes against my trend of taste totally. I don’t even understand why these people don’t have an impact on me; if I wrote a checklist of things I like in a singer, they would tick almost every box. But when I hear their songs, I just don’t enjoy them. Sometimes, I can appreciate talent, but in the same way I appreciate talent from Gary Barlow. OK, you’re a good singer, but I am just going to listen to some auto-tuned Black Eyed Peas, thank you very much.
3 – THE YMCA
I find cheese songs brilliant. I am not even talking about ABBA power anthems from the 80s, or when someone breaks out the Venga Boys. I love the cheese from the 90s and early 00s. At parties, I am the first person to suggest we bring out the S Club 7 and in my darkest moments, I listen to the Sugababes willingly on my own. Like not even for a dare or anything. Usually when parties go down the cheese road, we start jumping around to Steps, pull out the dance routines like the Cha Cha Slide and… God, this could be the most pathetic article I have ever written. Anyone, one of the logical progressions of the cheese road is to play the YMCA. It is the Cheese genre’s nuclear bomb. Funny costumes, camp singers and a dance routine that teaches you to spell. What’s not to like?!
But I loathe this song. I think this is the line, where things get too camp for me. There is just some switch in my brain that hates the idea, even when totally wasted, of make a ‘Y’ shape above my head. I turn into the Grinch that gets inexplicably pissed off, when people treat this song like it is the highlight of the night. I totally get the irony of that, because I most likely get people into that mood, when I recite the entire Vanilla Ice rap. The YMCA is where I draw the line at fun, and I am not quite sure why. One of life’s many mysteries… that is far too lame to bother solving.
2 – SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA
The main music preference I can freely admit in public, without being egged, is club music. I love the stuff, going from House to Dubstep. This is where people bring up Swedish House Mafia, raving about them (pun intended). This is always awkward, because I haven’t really jumped on the bandwagon. That song they did with Pharrell that everyone loved to pieces ‘One’, did nothing for me. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as the other club songs about. Nothing they have ever brought out after that worked either. I have no problem with more vocal-based club tunes, but Swedish House Mafia seemed to too intent on making anthems. I never got swept up in the hype.
I will give them their last song though. At first, ‘Don’t You Worry, Child’ was also a flop in my eyes. Again, it seemed too focused on becoming that one song everyone waited the whole night to sing at the top of their lungs. I moderately liked it, but wouldn’t consider downloading it. That’s when I realised it was their swansong – they were bowing out of the game. Suddenly that song felt so much more iconic. It was more than a song; it was a farewell. And as I listening to that tune in a whole new light, every strand of emotion they had been conveying all of these years hitting me, I realised that I had been missing out on something truly epic.
1 – BEYONCE
I have no idea why, but I love my divas. Britney, Katy Perry, Rita Ora… I don’t even like them ironically, like most people. If someone bought me a Pop Princess album for a joke, I would embarrassingly assume that they read my Christmas list (that was an awkward break-up). However, Beyonce, who is arguably the most diva Diva out there, does nothing for me. I only can guess at why. I respect that she can sing a tune (in fact, she has one of the most amazing voices out there), and that her songs are the right side of catchy, but I only have a small list of songs I like from her, and even then, I am in no rush to play any of them.
The easy explanation here is the ‘girl-power’ road. I have already joked about ‘Single Ladies’ being able to make every bloke on the dance floor awkwardly shuffle off. Her target audience is essentially Taylor Swift fans who are embarrassed to be classed as Taylor Swift fans. That pretty much means that most of her discography, including every song she has done with Destiny’s Child, gets taken off my playlist. However, there are still some great songs out there, without the men-hating: ‘Naughty Girl, Crazy in Love, Sweet Dreams’. I like those songs, but I don’t class them anywhere near the same league as the other female singers I like. Maybe, there is something I dislike about how Beyonce knows how good a singer she is. She cannot make a song to relax to; there is always one point where she over-sings, at that reeks of boasting to me. They are all small things and this is in no way a criticism to Beyonce fans: I have a weird distant respect for her music, but it is just not for me. Guess, I am not as mainstream as I thought I was.